Just one student submitted questions for OUSA’s referendum this semester. That one student submitted two questions to OUSA, questions 5 and 6, and the questions are about swimming and podcasting, respectively.
Georgia Mischefski-Gray, OUSA’s Administrative Vice President, said that “for the time of the year which the referenda are held, [the number of questions] is as expected as it is busy for students”.
Question 6 asks: “Should OUSA lobby the Dunedin City Council for a student concession and casual rate at Moana Pool?”
Moana Pool already has a student concession and casual rate for students.
The pros of the Moana Pool question are listed on the referendum as: “This could lead to a student concession and casual rate at Moana pool.” The cons are listed as: “This could take time away from lobbying efforts elsewhere.” It appears that neither the student nor the OUSA Exec has ever been swimming at Moana Pool using the student $4.20 (nice) concession rate.
Question 5, also submitted by the mystery student, asks: “Should Radio One make its studio available to produce student-made podcasts to host on streaming platforms?” The answer to this is no, because podcasts are objectively bad.
The rest of the questions on OUSA’s Sem 2 referendum are related to OUSA’s budget and whether or not they should withdraw from NZUSA, the national student union. If that last question looks familiar, that is because it is - it’s being re-asked from the Sem 1 referendum because OUSA previously forgot to tell students that leaving NZUSA would hurt the national Māori students’ association, Te Mana Ākonga, and Thursdays in Black.
Georgia said that the benefits of student submitted questions were “huge”. “We get to know what students actually want from us, and what their issues are that they think need to have student body input,” she said. “Questions are able to shape the actions of Executive members and inform us what is wanted.”
OUSA’s referendum, where you get to vote on these six questions, will take place from 15 September to 17 September.